RIAA targets 963 alleged file-traders

The farce that launched (almost) a thousand slips

The Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) this week filed almost 1000 lawsuits this week, all of them accusing individuals of sharing unauthorised copies of songs on P2P networks

Some 750 people are unnamed, with 213 more citing alleged copyright infringers' names. The latter had all received demands to cease their activities and make some remuneration for their acts, but in each case the deadline for settlement had passed, the RIAA said.

To date, the RIAA has issued over 6200 lawsuits against named and unnamed individuals, most recently 762 complaints filed late September. The first lawsuits were sent out in September 2003.

Earlier this week, it emerged that the RIAA had settled its copyright infringement action against the operators of Spain-based MP3 seller Puretunes.com for a total of $10.5m. ®